- Old age popped up as a topic in my feed. The Crux considered when human societies began to accumulate large numbers of aged people. Would there have been octogenarians in any Stone Age cultures, for instance? Information is Beautiful, meanwhile, shares an informative infographic analyzing the factors that go into extending one’s life expectancy.
- Growing populations in cities, and real estate markets hostile even to established residents, are a concern of mine in Toronto. They are shared globally: The Malta Independent examined some months ago how strong growth in the labour supply and tourism, along with capital inflows, have driven up property prices in Malta. Marginal Revolution noted there are conflicts between NIMBYism, between opposing development in established neighbourhoods, and supporting open immigration policies.
- Ethnic migrations also appeared. The Cape Breton Post shared a fascinating report about the history of the Jewish community of industrial Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia, while the Guardian of Charlottetown reports the reunification of a family of Syrian refugees on Prince Edward Island. In Eurasia, meanwhile, Window on Eurasia noted the growth of the Volga Tatar population of Moscow, something hidden by the high degree of assimilation of many of its members.
- Looking towards the future, Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen was critical of the idea of limiting the number of children one has in a time of climate change. On a related theme, his co-blogger Alex Tabarrok highlights a new paper aiming to predict the future, one that argues that the greatest economic gains will eventually accrue to the densest populations. Established high-income regions, it warns, could lose out if they keep out migrants.
Showing posts with label islands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label islands. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Some links: longevity, real estate, migrations, the future
I have been away on vacation in Venice--more on that later--but I am back now.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Some news links: public art, history, marriage, diaspora, assimilation
Some more population-related links popped up over the past week.
- CBC Toronto reported on this year’s iteration of Winter Stations. A public art festival held on the Lake Ontario shorefront in the east-end Toronto neighbourhood of The Beaches, Winter Stations this year will be based around the theme of migration.
- JSTOR Daily noted how the interracial marriages of serving members of the US military led to the liberalization of immigration law in the United States in the 1960s. With hundreds of thousands of interracial marriages of serving members of the American military to Asian women, there was simply no domestic constituency in the United States
- Ozy reported on how Dayton, Ohio, has managed to thrive in integrating its immigrant populations.
- Amro Ali, writing at Open Democracy, makes a case for the emergence of Berlin as a capital for Arab exiles fleeing the Middle East and North America in the aftermath of the failure of the Arab revolutions. The analogy he strikes to Paris in the 1970s, a city that offered similar shelter to Latin American refugees at that time, resonates.
- Alex Boyd at The Island Review details, with prose and photos, his visit to the isolated islands of St. Kilda, inhabited from prehistoric times but abandoned in 1930.
- VICE looks at the plight of people who, as convicted criminals, were deported to the Tonga where they held citizenship. How do they live in a homeland they may have no experience of? The relative lack of opportunity in Tonga that drove their family's earlier migration in the first place is a major challenge.
- Window on Eurasia notes how, in many post-Soviet countries including the Baltic States and Ukraine, ethnic Russians are assimilating into local majority ethnic groups. (The examples of the industrial Donbas and Crimea, I would suggest, are exceptional. In the case of the Donbas, 2014 might well have been the latest point at which a pro-Russian separatist movement was possible.)
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Some migration-related news links
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Some thematic links: France, Ukraine, Russia, Japan, China, South Pacific
I've been collecting links for the past while, part of my ongoing research into some interesting topics. I thought I'd share some with you tonight.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
On multicultural Cyprus
The latest stage of the ongoing Cypriot financial crisis, a haircut imposed on depositors in Cypriot banks, has been covered very extensively throughout the blogosphere and the wider news media. We can only be thankful, I suppose, that there hasn't been a general run on banks across southern Europe. (Pessimists would remind me, correctly, that there is still time.)
One thing that has come up in the coverage is the extensive international involvement in the Cypriot crisis: Cypriot banks loaned to Greece and exposed themselves heavily, British expatriates and Russian investors have complained about their losses, and so forth. It's a minor irony that Cyprus, a small island with a total population of a million people, has become so globalized. Its strategic location can be thanked for that--in 1878, as the Ottoman Empire trembled in the aftermath of the catastrophic war over Bulgaria I blogged about earlier this month, Britain took Cyprus on as a protectorate, counting on using its strategic location to help protect the Suez Canal. Evolving after the start of the First World War into a fully-fledged crown colony, old Ottoman traditions of quiet co-existence between two ethnic groups began to evolve into the seeds of ethnonational conflict.
The Ottomans tended to administer their multicultural empire with the help of their subject millets, or religious communities. The tolerance of the millet system permitted the Greek Cypriot community to survive, administered for Constantinople by the Archbishop of the Church of Cyprus, who became the community's head, or ethnarch.
[. . .]
In the light of intercommunal conflict since the mid-1950s, it is surprising that Cypriot Muslims and Christians generally lived harmoniously. Some Christian villages converted to Islam. In many places, Turks settled next to Greeks. The island evolved into a demographic mosaic of Greek and Turkish villages, as well as many mixed communities. The extent of this symbiosis could be seen in the two groups' participation in commercial and religious fairs, pilgrimages to each other's shrines, and the occurrence, albeit rare, of intermarriage despite Islamic and Greek laws to the contrary. There was also the extreme case of the linobambakoi (linen-cottons), villagers who practiced the rites of both religions and had a Christian as well as a Muslim name. In the minds of some, such religious syncretism indicates that religion was not a source of conflict in traditional Cypriot society.
The rise of Greek nationalism in the 1820s and 1830s affected Greek Cypriots, but for the rest of the century these sentiments were limited to the educated. The concept of enosis--unification with the Greek motherland, by then an independent country after freeing itself from Ottoman rule--became important to literate Greek Cypriots. A movement for the realization of enosis gradually formed, in which the Church of Cyprus had a dominant role.
What's more, after the conclusion of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 led to a near-complete separation of Greeks and Turks into their respective nation-states, Cyprus was the only remaining substantial territory where Greeks and Turks lived mixed. It may have been inevitable that after independence, conflict between the Greeks and the Turks would eventually escalate into full-fledged war, resulting in a 1974 Turkish military intervention that led to the creation of a Turkish North Cyprus separate from the internationally-recognized--and overwhelmingly Greek--Republic of Cyprus.
As noted in the Library of Congress study on the country, published in 1991, Cyprus--like many other island societies--saw substantial emigration in the post-Second World War period, directed towards the colonial metropole of the United Kingdom.
The periods of greatest emigration were 1955-59, the 1960s, and 1974-79, times of political instability and socioeconomic insecurity when future prospects appeared bleak and unpromising. Between 1955 and 1959, the period of anticolonial struggle, 29,000 Cypriots, 5 percent of the population, left the island. In the 1960s, there were periods of economic recession and intercommunal strife, and net emigration has been estimated at about 50,000, or 8.5 percent of the island's 1970 population. Most of these emigrants were young males from rural areas and usually unemployed. Some five percent were factory workers and only 5 percent were university graduates. Britain headed the list of destinations, taking more than 75 percent of the emigrants in 1953-73; another 8 to 10 percent went to Australia, and about 5 percent to North America.
During the early 1970s, economic development, social progress, and relative political stability contributed to a slackening of emigration. At the same time, there was immigration, so that the net immigration was 3,200 in 1970-73. This trend ended with the 1974 invasion. During the 1974-79 period, 51,500 persons left as emigrants, and another 15,000 became temporary workers abroad. The new wave of emigrants had Australia as the most common destination (35 percent), followed by North America, Greece, and Britain. Many professionals and technical workers emigrated, and for the first time more women than men left. By the early 1980s, the government had rebuilt the economy, and the 30 percent unemployment rate of 1974 was replaced by a labor shortage. As a result, only about 2,000 Cypriots emigrated during the years 1980-86, while 2,850 returned to the island.
Although emigration slowed to a trickle during the 1980s, so many Cypriots had left the island in preceding decades that in the late 1980s an estimated 300,000 Cypriots (a number equivalent to 60 percent of the population of the Republic of Cyprus) resided in seven foreign countries.
Now, however, Cyprus has become a major destination for immigration. The politically most critical immigration has been in North Cyprus, where migration from Turkey--permanent and otherwise--has occurred on a politically controversial scale. Some estimates suggest that half of the population of North Cyprus, numbering something on the order of a quarter-million people, is of first- or second-generation Turkish immigrant background. This alleged high proportion was one reason why Greek Cypriots rejected the 2004 Annan plan for reunification of the island: a North that was substantially or maybe even mostly populated by immigrants wasn't a legitimate negotiating partner. Turning to the Norwegian International Peace Research Institute (PIRO), however, Mete Hatay's 2007 report "Is the Turkish Cypriot Population Shrinking?" makes a compelling case that this proportion is a large overestimate, product of authentic measurement errors and judgements of bad faith all around. I don't feel qualified to make any judgement on these figures apart from observing that a neutral third-party could be very useful.
Less politically controversial has been the substantial immigration into the Republic of Cyprus, amounting to a quarter of the total population of the European Union member-state. Attracted by the island-state's pleasant climate and (until recently) dynamic economy, tens of thousands of people have immigrated to Cyprus, from distant Britain (stereotypically retirees and other expatriates), from Balkan countries like Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, and from Russia. I've been following Russian interest in Cyprus for a bit at my blog. Suffice it to say that Cyprus' status as an offshore financial centre for Russians, its pleasant environment, and sentimental bonds of Orthodox Christianity shared with Russia helped make Cyprus a destination on par with Montenegro in the Balkans and Latvia. (Apparently the European Union is now in the process of making sure that the financial system of Latvia, slated to accede to the Euro next year, is free from Cypriot excesses.) Early in February, a Guardian report claimed that the Chinese were starting to come to Cyprus.
It will soon be carnival time in the city of Pafos on the south-west coast of Cyprus – and this year theme is China.
"Everything will be Chinese," says Pafos mayor, Savvas Vergas, in his office in the pretty, whitewashed city hall, fronted by classical Greek pillars. "Meals … folklore … Everything will be on Chinese culture."
The carnival will be a way of celebrating a most unusual boom in a country which, like others in southern Europe, has been stricken by the eurozone crisis. Property prices in Cyprus have fallen by around 15% since 2007. Yet an official survey published last month found that between last August and October more than 600 properties were sold to Chinese buyers, 90% of which were in Pafos.
"The real growth came after August because that was when the government made clear the terms and conditions for third country nationals to get permanent residence," says Giorgios Leptos, a director of the Leptos property group and president of the Pafos chamber of commerce and industry.
The opportunity to secure permanent residence in an EU member state is a huge attraction for Chinese because it offers them visa-free travel throughout the union. Almost 4,500 miles away, Lisha Tang, a young client at a Beijing property firm, is relishing the prospect.
"A house in Cyprus means travelling freely in Europe, which is great for young people," she says.
[. . .]
To obtain permanent residence in Cyprus, investors from outside the EU have to spend at least €300,000 (£260,000) on a property. They must also prove that they have no criminal record and are in good financial standing and agree to deposit €30,000 for a minimum of three years in a local bank account. Their permit normally arrives in about 45 days.
Cyprus is not the only EU state to be exploring this way of reinvigorating a stagnant property market. Last year, Ireland and Portugal also offered residency to foreigners who bought property worth more than a certain amount. In November Spain's trade minister, Jaime Garcia-Legaz, said his country was intending to follow suit in an attempt to clear his country's vast backlog of unsold homes.
Some of Cyprus' super-rich immigrants will fall prey to the bank levy.
A band of super-rich foreign tycoons who took Cypriot citizenship in recent decades – lured by a favourable tax regime – are expected to be among the hardest hit by the island's surprise deposit tax as several are believed to have been required to deposit at least €17m of their fortunes on the island to qualify for citizenship.
Billionaires attracted to the island by the controversial citizenship scheme, designed to court super-rich figures, include Norwegian-born oil tanker tycoon John Fredriksen, Israeli internet gambling entrepreneur Teddy Sagi, and Alexander Abramov, the Russian steel magnate who chairs FTSE 100 group Evraz.
Cyprus's then interior minister, Neoclis Sylikiotis, explained the rules to local newspaper Cyprus Weekly in 2010: "Cypriot nationality is given in special cases, following approval from the council of ministers … on the basis of specific criteria, including the applicant being over 30, having no criminal record, owning a permanent home in Cyprus and travelling to the island."
Further criteria include depositing at least €17m with a local bank over five years, direct investments of €30m, or registering a large business on the island.
Between 2007 and 2010 some 30 foreign nationals, mostly Russians, were reportedly granted Cypriot citizenship. Most prominent among them was Abramov. "Mr Abramov is considered to be offering high level services to the Republic of Cyprus, taking into account his business activities," explained Sylikiotis. "Therefore, reasons of public interest justify his naturalisation as a special case."
Whether or not any of this immigration will survive in the aftermath of the bank levy is open to question. In the case of Russia, initial outrage seems ready to lead to disengagement for stabler economic climes. A resurgence of Cypriot emigration, perhaps from both halves of the island, can't necessarily be excluded. I wonder what contingency plans the United Kingdom might have.
Monday, February 25, 2013
On the outports of Newfoundland as a globally-relevant paradigm
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine wrote an essay about the outport communities of Newfoundland, an essay titled "On Futility". The outport is a form of community unique to Newfoundland, a densely-populated coastal village with a population in the dozens or hundreds dependent on the once-abundant cod fisheries. A 2008 article by Jenny Higgins for the Newfoundland Heritage site points out how low living standards and the attractiveness of other areas--urban Newfoundland, mainland Canada, maybe even points further--created a tradition of emigration that only intensified after the collapse of the same fisheries in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
[The Newfoundland fisheries] existed for centuries and employed thousands of people, with many more engaged in processing, exporting and transporting the catch.
Then it got overfished. It collapsed in the early 90s, and it crashed hard: in some areas, stocks declined 99% over 50 years.
The fisheries have been under a moratorium for exactly 20 years now. There has been no improvement. Instead, the ecosystem is changing: invasive species are moving in, predators are devastating the remaining populations, and there is little to no evidence of a recovery. The Newfoundland fisheries are, for all intents and purposes, dead.
Large numbers of Newfoundlanders refuse to accept this. They demand that the fisheries be re-opened, as if the fish are merely hiding: the second a boat hits the water, the cod will come leaping out of the surf by the thousands, eager to be caught.
Others have accepted that the fisheries are dead, but insist that the jobs need to find them: they’re going to sit tight and wait for the government to find an industry for each and every teeny, tiny dot on the map. Even the towns with only a dozen residents. Even the towns accessible only by sea. Even the towns without reliable electricity or running water.
The hinky thing is that the young people seem to get it.
The exodus from the outports, and rural Newfoundland, is continuing to this day. There have been news reports of a very partial recovery of cod stocks last year, not nearly enough to justify the revival of the fisheries outports. A 2011 essay by sociologist Deatra Walsh--in Walsh's case, the town of Lewisporte--points out that many rural communities of Newfoundland may survive, service towns and the like, but that the outport is doomed. A 2001 paper (PDF) by Hamilton and Butler, "Outport Adaptations: Social Indicators through Newfoundland’s Cod Crisis", emphasizes that rural Newfoundland managed to retain a fair amount of social cohesion in the decade after the mortatorium in 1992, thanks to off-the-book employment and federal subsidies. In a 2012 opinion piece in the National Post, Newfoundland-born columnist Rex Murphy points out that the collapse of the outport has significant cultural repercussions for Newfoundlanders.
The end of the cod fishery stirred the greatest in-country migration of Newfoundlanders of modern times. Thousands of fishermen and plant workers and their families, scattered through all the towns and villages of Newfoundland’s meandering coastlines, were forced to look elsewhere for sustenance and employment. They were forced to abandon what they knew best, the environment of their families for generations, the peculiar set of skills that goes with fishing, and go out of province to an abruptly new life.
The moratorium brought on a seismic alteration in Newfoundland. The outports have been drained of their most active people; the long chain of continuous living from the sea and living on its very borders has been broken beyond repair. Many of the famous towns and outports — names that have been in songs and stories almost forever — are now whittled to half their size and less. Some old people remain. The younger come back every little while to visit, see parents, or just to savor time close to the water. But the dynamic life of the majority of outports is over with the fishery that gave birth to it.
It’s a striking, very melancholy change. While the outports dwindle into mere picturesqueness, the capital city of St. John’s explodes with activity and commerce from the offshore. There’s a Calgary feel to how fast things are moving in St. John’s. The offshore oil developments came at a very providential time. They also, I think, take the mind away from the stark prospects of Newfoundland outside the city.
[. . .]
Those who have left for good know how deep the change was. Those who remain carry the largely unspoken insight that outport Newfoundland, which gave birth to such a singular culture, rich in humour and pathos, indented with hardship and tragedy, and irresistible to those who felt its appeal, is on the point of vanishing.
All this is true. And yet, I'd suggest that the movement away from the outports towards urban areas--places like the capital city of St. John's, or like any number of destinations in Canada like the big cities of Ontario or Alberta--is a good thing for the people who lived there, or who would have lived there. Isolated one-industry villages capable of providing only marginal standards of living aren't good places to live. I'd question, like Wonkman, if it's a good idea to spend resources keeping non-viable communities alive at an artificial level of activity, as opposed to allowing for a certain amount of planned decline. Certainly the young people of the outports don't seem interested in staying in communities which have outlasted their economic base.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
On the Maltese immigrants in North Africa
The country of Malta has had many representations. Most recently, after its accession to the European Union in 2004 and to the Eurozone in 2008 while it became a major transit point and inadvertant destination for migrants, it has been imagined as a destination for migrants, perhaps peculiarly vulnerable owing to its small size and relatively tenuous economic state and national identity. Malta, as represented in the press, might be a beseiged battlement of Fortress Europe, located perilously close to the North African coast.
That's not the only way it's been seen. In fact, this time last century the situation was precisely the reverse. As small islands sometimes overpopulated relative to the productive capacity of their once-agricultural/military-driven economy part of the British global empire, from the mid-19th century on Malta experienced massive emigration, tens after tens of thousands of Maltese emigrants making their way throughout the British Empire and later Commonwealth and beyond. Some settled in Canada, for instance, the nucleus of the Maltese-Canadian community (as described by Shawn Micallef) lying here in Toronto just a couple of subway stops to the west of my home beyond its eventual dispersal. Many Maltese chose not to leave home so far behind and instead immigrated to French North Africa, to the Algeria colonized since 1830 and the Tunisia made a protectorate from 1881. There, Maltese immigrants came to play critical roles in the colonization of North African territories at a time when population pressures in Europe made the organized settlement of the southern rim of the Mediterranean Sea by Europeans seem a sensible idea.
Settlement in Tunisia began later.
Go, read, and reflect on the interesting ways in which history can more than reverse itself in short periods of time. Malta wasn't the territory experiencing pressure from ill-regulated immigration; Maltese, rather, were settlers making new homes in the conquered territories just beyond the horizon.
That's not the only way it's been seen. In fact, this time last century the situation was precisely the reverse. As small islands sometimes overpopulated relative to the productive capacity of their once-agricultural/military-driven economy part of the British global empire, from the mid-19th century on Malta experienced massive emigration, tens after tens of thousands of Maltese emigrants making their way throughout the British Empire and later Commonwealth and beyond. Some settled in Canada, for instance, the nucleus of the Maltese-Canadian community (as described by Shawn Micallef) lying here in Toronto just a couple of subway stops to the west of my home beyond its eventual dispersal. Many Maltese chose not to leave home so far behind and instead immigrated to French North Africa, to the Algeria colonized since 1830 and the Tunisia made a protectorate from 1881. There, Maltese immigrants came to play critical roles in the colonization of North African territories at a time when population pressures in Europe made the organized settlement of the southern rim of the Mediterranean Sea by Europeans seem a sensible idea.
Algeria was for many years the most important country for Maltese migration within the zone of the Mediterranean. Under various aspects it was also the most successful and statistics show that by the middle of the nineteenth century more than half of Malta's emigrants had chosen Algeria as their country of residence. Although the French conquest had began in 1830, some Maltese had found their way to the area around the city of Constantine before the French connection had began. In 1834 a French governor for North Africa had been appointed, and as the French consolidated their foothold on Algerian territory, Europeans followed the French tricolor. Among the Europeans the Maltese were one of the largest groups, being outnumbered only by Spaniards and Sicilians.
Like all newcomers, the Maltese in Algeria did at first encounter hostility from the French. Continental Europeans looked down on other Europeans who came from the islands such as the Sicilians and the Maltese. It is true to admit that most insular Europeans were poor and illiterate. Some did have a criminal record and were only too ready to carry on with their way of life in other parts of the Mediterranean where their names were not publicly known.
French official policy was dictated by sheer necessity. France was a large and prosperous country. Its population was not enormous and many French peasants were quite happy with their lot. If the French needed colonists to make their presence permanent they had to turn to other sources to obtain their manpower. The French Consul in Malta was in favour of encouraging Maltese emigrants to settle in Algeria. He believed that the Maltese showed a distinct liking for France and the French. Although the Maltese under the British, they were not politically active and the French could accept them without any fear.
Another important man who favoured Maltese emigration to North Africa in general and to Algeria in particular was the prominent French churchman, Cardinal Charles Lavigeric who had dreams of converting the Maghreb back to Christianity. Lavigerie saw North Africa in historical terms as he was professor of Church history. He founded a religious order which was . commonly called "The White Fathers" with scope of spreading Christianity among the .Berbers and the Arabs. Cardinal Lavigerie was archbishop of Carthage and Algiers. In 1882 Cardinal Lavigerie visited Malta. He immediately appreciated the Catholic fervour of the islanders. During his stay he talked of the Maltese as providential instruments meant to augment the Christian population of French North Africa. He saw the Maltese as loyal to France and to the Catholic Church and at the same time as being eminently useful in building some form of communication with the Arab masses.
[. . .]
By 1847 the number of Maltese living in Algeria was calculated at 4,610. The Maltese colony in Algeria had been realised as being of some importance by that date, so much so that Maltese church leaders decided to send two priests during Lent to deliver sermons in Maltese.
In a letter written by the Governor General of ,Algeria on June 17, 1903, it was stated that by then there were 15,000 inhabitants who claimed Maltese origin. Most of these were small farmers, fishermen and traders. As in other parts of North Africa, the Maltese ability to speak in three or four languages helped them to get on well with the French, Spaniards, Italians and Arabs.
In 1926 the number of ethnic Maltese living in Algeria and Tunisia was tentatively calculated at about 30,000. The exact number of Maltese in was impossible to arrive at because many Maltese had opted for French nationality. By 1927 the Maltese were considered as excellent settlers who worked very hard and were honest in their dealings with others. This was the judgement given by Monsieur Emile Morinaud, a Deputy for Algiers in Paris. In a speech delivered by Morinaud on November 30, 1927, the French politician declared the Maltese as being "French at heart".
Settlement in Tunisia began later.
When Napoleon Bonaparte captured Malta from the Knights of St. John in 1798 he ordered the Bay of Tunis to free all the Maltese slaves who languished in jail. At least fifty such slaves returned to Malta. For centuries the Maltese who found themselves in Tunis probably did so against their will. With the advent of the Napoleonic Era and the re-structuring of political power in Europe and along the shores of the Mediterranean, the pirates of Tunis lost their trade. The foothold gained by the French in North Africa changed the political framework of the Maghreb and some Europeans thought, somewhat prematurely, that the Mediterranean was to enter into another Roman Epoch. with peace reigning all along its coasts.
The Maltese were among the first to venture in their speronaras into Tunisian waters. They traded with coastal towns and with the island of Jerba. Eventually they established settlements not only in Tunis and on jerba but also in Susa, Monastir, Mehdia and Sfax. By 1842 there were about 3,000 Maltese in the Regency. In less than twenty years their numbers increased to 7,000.
[. . .]
The French had one serious preoccupation in Tunisia. Italian immigrants had settled there in their thousands and Italy had coveted Tunisia for a very long time. The French occupation of Tunisia had gone down very badly with the Italians. The French wanted the Maltese to act as a counter-balance to the Italians. British consular statistics show that by the beginning of the twentieth century there were 15,326 Maltese living in Tunisia.
The Maltese in Tunisia worked on farms, on the railways, in the ports and in small industries. They introduced different types of fruit trees which they had brought with them from Malta. Moreover contact between Malta and Tunisia was constant because the small boats owned by the Maltese, popularly known as speronaras, constantly plied the narrow waters between Tunisia and the Maltese Islands.
Paul Cambon referred to the Maltese living in Tunisia as the "Anglo-Maltese Element". He was grateful that such an element proved to be either loyal to France or at least was politically neutral. In spite of rampant anti-clericalism in France, the French allowed the Maltese complete freedom of their religion. Cardinal Lavigerie was respected. The fiery leader of French anti-clericalism, Leon Gambetta, did not hesitate to state that when French priests spread not only religion but French culture, then they were to be allowed to carry on with their work without any restraint.
After 1900 it became legally possible for foreigners to buy land in Tunisia. After that year there was a number of Maltese landowners in that country. In 1912 trade between Tunisia and Malta had risen to more than two million francs. Cultural ties were kept alive by the frequent visits brass bands from Malta which were often invited to cross the water to help create a festive -mood when the Maltese in Tunisia celebrated the feast of their parish. On April 10, 1926, a Maltese newspaper commented on a visit made by the French President to Tunisia. The newspaper claimed that the President, Emile Loubet, had eulogised the Maltese as "a model colony".
Go, read, and reflect on the interesting ways in which history can more than reverse itself in short periods of time. Malta wasn't the territory experiencing pressure from ill-regulated immigration; Maltese, rather, were settlers making new homes in the conquered territories just beyond the horizon.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
On Guernsey's population control
Reading yesterday's Financial Times, I found the insert describing how the Channel Island of Guernsey with its financial sector was coping with the global financial crisis interesting. (It's doing well, apparently.) My curiosity was piqued by a passing mention that Guernsey had an official policy of limiting population. What, I wondered, was up with that?
Guernsey is an island with a land area of 78 square kilometres. As of March 2009, Guernsey (according to the government's 2009 Population Bulletin) had a total population of 62 274 people. Until recently, Guernsey's population history was one of slow growth (doubling from twenty to forty thousand from 1821 to 1901) followed by periods of decline and slow growth (growing from forty to forty-five thousand between 1901 and 1961). Migration tended to be emigration, nearly four thousand Channel Islanders settling in New Zealand in the late 19th century, for instance. With an economy historically dependent on agriculture, fishing, and long-distance trade, there was relatively little reason for anyone to stay and any number of pathways to leave.
This changed in the post-war era when Guernsey's government, like the government of Jersey and the other Channel Islands, began to promote the island as an off-shore financial sector. This succeeded enormously, making the island prosperous, with barely any unemployment and a history of sustained growth that has made this microstate one of the richest entities in the world. Guernsey's comparative advantage remains there, with things like online gambling and forays into information technology being promoted for alternatives, tourism and the primary sector declining (Guernsey retains a more diversified economy than Jersey, mind). This prosperity attracted immigrants, both people with professional skills and people wanting to take advantage of other areas of the labour market. Guernsey's age pyramid shows a decided imbalance towards men in the younger age groups.
The problem with immigration, as seen from the Guernsey perspective, is that Guernsey is already very densely populated. An increased population would impact negatively, it seems, on their perceived quality of life.
On one side of the argument are those islanders – I suspect they’re a big majority – who feel the island is already rather overcrowded. It’s not an issue of misanthropy or xenophobia but rather just a natural desire to live in a place with a bit of breathing space. Most islanders don’t want to become urban dwellers. Not even in an up market, city-state, surrounded by pretty bays and beautiful seascapes. The vision of Guernsey as “Hong Kong dans la Manches” is a nightmare for most locals and settlers alike.
Every time a few hundred more residents are added to the population it inevitably impacts on quality of life in the island. Not because the incomers aren’t thoroughly good sorts but just because its means more cars on our limited road system and more homes in a community where open space is already at a premium. It also puts more stress on our infrastructure – more water and electricity to be supplied, more educational and healthcare needs, not forgetting more rubbish to be disposed of.
So there is a strong qualitative case for ending Guernsey’s historic trend of steady population growth which has gone on unabated, bar a couple of blips, since the island’s first census in 1821 showed a population of just 20,302. The $64,000 question is how?
The key element to date in Guernsey's population control strategy is to strictly regulate housing. Most housing on the island is strictly licensed, and migrants fall into two categories, those who have essential skills and can settle with their families for extended periods of time, and those who don't.
Is it working? Slow population growth is continuing notwithstanding these regulations, and--perhaps--a shift away from traditional sectors of the economy like horticulture dependent on unskilled workers. The restricted talent pool, is making many businesses favour greater flexibility--the Chamber of Commerce would like to see more flexibility, growth or (less likely) decline of up to 10%. The aging of Guernsey's population, meanwhile, will create more problems.
[Consultant Greg] Yeoman said forecasts had predicted that by 2040, the number of people aged 65-84 would have nearly doubled and that those aged over 85 would have gone up by 150%, meaning the island’s dependency ratio will have increased by 64% from 0.48 to 0.79.
‘There will be an insufficient labour pool to support diverse business growth,’ said Mr Yeoman.
‘People are struggling to fill these positions now, so imagine how much harder it will be if we have 7,000 fewer in our working population.’
He said the offshoot of this would be hugely problematic, with an explosion in the cost of providing health and social care and the unsustainability of the States pension given as just two examples.
Based on my own personal and other history with small islands, I'm used to the idea that emigration is the major problem. Coming up against Guernsey with the reverse was a thought-provoking experience.
Guernsey is an island with a land area of 78 square kilometres. As of March 2009, Guernsey (according to the government's 2009 Population Bulletin) had a total population of 62 274 people. Until recently, Guernsey's population history was one of slow growth (doubling from twenty to forty thousand from 1821 to 1901) followed by periods of decline and slow growth (growing from forty to forty-five thousand between 1901 and 1961). Migration tended to be emigration, nearly four thousand Channel Islanders settling in New Zealand in the late 19th century, for instance. With an economy historically dependent on agriculture, fishing, and long-distance trade, there was relatively little reason for anyone to stay and any number of pathways to leave.
This changed in the post-war era when Guernsey's government, like the government of Jersey and the other Channel Islands, began to promote the island as an off-shore financial sector. This succeeded enormously, making the island prosperous, with barely any unemployment and a history of sustained growth that has made this microstate one of the richest entities in the world. Guernsey's comparative advantage remains there, with things like online gambling and forays into information technology being promoted for alternatives, tourism and the primary sector declining (Guernsey retains a more diversified economy than Jersey, mind). This prosperity attracted immigrants, both people with professional skills and people wanting to take advantage of other areas of the labour market. Guernsey's age pyramid shows a decided imbalance towards men in the younger age groups.
The problem with immigration, as seen from the Guernsey perspective, is that Guernsey is already very densely populated. An increased population would impact negatively, it seems, on their perceived quality of life.
On one side of the argument are those islanders – I suspect they’re a big majority – who feel the island is already rather overcrowded. It’s not an issue of misanthropy or xenophobia but rather just a natural desire to live in a place with a bit of breathing space. Most islanders don’t want to become urban dwellers. Not even in an up market, city-state, surrounded by pretty bays and beautiful seascapes. The vision of Guernsey as “Hong Kong dans la Manches” is a nightmare for most locals and settlers alike.
Every time a few hundred more residents are added to the population it inevitably impacts on quality of life in the island. Not because the incomers aren’t thoroughly good sorts but just because its means more cars on our limited road system and more homes in a community where open space is already at a premium. It also puts more stress on our infrastructure – more water and electricity to be supplied, more educational and healthcare needs, not forgetting more rubbish to be disposed of.
So there is a strong qualitative case for ending Guernsey’s historic trend of steady population growth which has gone on unabated, bar a couple of blips, since the island’s first census in 1821 showed a population of just 20,302. The $64,000 question is how?
The key element to date in Guernsey's population control strategy is to strictly regulate housing. Most housing on the island is strictly licensed, and migrants fall into two categories, those who have essential skills and can settle with their families for extended periods of time, and those who don't.
Is it working? Slow population growth is continuing notwithstanding these regulations, and--perhaps--a shift away from traditional sectors of the economy like horticulture dependent on unskilled workers. The restricted talent pool, is making many businesses favour greater flexibility--the Chamber of Commerce would like to see more flexibility, growth or (less likely) decline of up to 10%. The aging of Guernsey's population, meanwhile, will create more problems.
[Consultant Greg] Yeoman said forecasts had predicted that by 2040, the number of people aged 65-84 would have nearly doubled and that those aged over 85 would have gone up by 150%, meaning the island’s dependency ratio will have increased by 64% from 0.48 to 0.79.
‘There will be an insufficient labour pool to support diverse business growth,’ said Mr Yeoman.
‘People are struggling to fill these positions now, so imagine how much harder it will be if we have 7,000 fewer in our working population.’
He said the offshoot of this would be hugely problematic, with an explosion in the cost of providing health and social care and the unsustainability of the States pension given as just two examples.
Based on my own personal and other history with small islands, I'm used to the idea that emigration is the major problem. Coming up against Guernsey with the reverse was a thought-provoking experience.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Cuba's missed opportunities
I'll start by linking to and quoting Rory Carroll's Guardian article "Cuba suffers exodus of the best and the brightest as economy remains in the doldrums".
The whole idea of an economic transition in Cuba from socialism on the models of China or Vietnam, with political authoritarianism combining with a substantial widening of economic freedom, remains far from realization.
Even now, recent reforms in the agricultural sector, distributing underused land to farmers, is being undermined by the high costs of mechanization and the lack of sufficient incentives to farmers--Cuba's not replicating China's successes in economic reform.
Many of Cuba's problems can be traced directly to its population issues. As J. Bradford Delong noted in 2008, Cuba on the eve of the revolution enjoyed levels of economic and human development comparable in Latin America only to developed Argentina and Uruguay, with higher standards of per capita income than most of southern Europe and one of the lowest rates of infant mortality in the world. The investments of the Castros' regime may have substantially increased levels of human development, but Cuba has lost tremendous amounts of ground economically. Once on par with Argentina and Uruguay, GDP per capita--at least according to the Penn World Table--on par with that of Mexico or the Dominican Republic. In the meantime, Cuba has adopted policies like the sharp limiting of urbanization that has doubtless played a major role in shifting labour in the Cuban economy from agriculture to higher value added sectors. One's tempted to conclude that Cuba's urbanization has been focused as much within Cuba (in Havana and smaller cities) as in the United States (in the Cuban-American heartland of Dade County), that for young Cubans moving to the big city means leaving their country.
Cuba is being very badly served by its rulers. The country has a narrow window, produced by its combination of sub-replacement fertility with continuing high levels of emigration. It has only a short amount of time in which it can grow rich, recovering at least some of the ground that it has lost over the past half-century. Instead, the current government has opted for policies of stagnation--economic, political, social--which will serve the country badly, perhaps allowing emigration as an escape valve for the unhappy young. This 2002 Library of Congress report makes it clear that Cuba's future economic development depends on a more economically rational distribution of its population, in economic sectors and by geography. Nearly a decade later, that hasn't happened.
Cuba may yet become a democracy, eventually, but I'm now much less hopeful than I was in my postings of 2006 and 2009 that Cuba will reform before it becomes a sort of Caribbean Moldova, impoverished and depopulating. Governments can adopt many different policies to deal with their demographic issues, but Cuba's government certainly isn't notable for its competency. Yes, replacement migration might be an option, but where would the migrants come from? and why would they head to Cuba, instead of the United States or Spain or any number of more attractive destinations? The possibility of self-reinforcing migration, as young Cubans leave a Cuba that would be left increasingly behind by other countries with better economic records and considerable need for labour and more follow suit as Cuba's position deteriorates, is a real one.
Young people, especially well-educated professionals, are fleeing the island. Tens of thousands have emigrated in the past two years. The exodus has alarmed the communist government but remains largely unreported, a taboo topic for state media.
"It's a sign that the revolution has failed, so they don't want to talk about it. We are losing our future," said Ricardo Martinelli, a university professor who has seen many of his students and his only child, a 23-year-old technician, emigrate in recent months.
Analysts blame growing frustration over President Raúl Castro's stalled reforms. After formally succeeding his brother Fidel last year, he promised economic liberalisation, but the average monthly wage remains $20 (£14). "What I notice more and more is the disaffection of youth: more people not seeing a future," said one European diplomat. A government-organised free concert on the Malecón seafront attracted a small fraction of the expected audience. When performers attempted rabble-rousing speeches, the crowd drifted away.
Unlike the mass exodus of the Mariel boatlift in 1980, when a chaotic scramble across the Florida straits seized world attention, this new wave of emigration has involved an orderly – and discreet – transit through Havana's José Martí airport. "At least 80% of my peers have left," said José-Miguel Marín, a 38-year-old scientist. "I keep track through Facebook. They are all over: Ecuador, Mexico, the United States, Spain."
Bureaucratic and financial hurdles remain, but Cuba has loosened restrictions on leaving, opening the door to those who have the will and means to wrangle a visa for another country. Often that means the best and brightest. "I saw people weeping when they were turned down for a US visa," said Carmen Gonce, 65, after visiting the office that represents US interests in Havana.
Ecuador has become a magnet, because it requires only a letter of invitation rather than a visa. Last year Cuban arrivals soared by 147% to 27,114, according to the national immigration agency. The number of Cubans marrying Ecuadoreans jumped from 88 in 2007 to 1,542 in the first nine months of 2009.
The whole idea of an economic transition in Cuba from socialism on the models of China or Vietnam, with political authoritarianism combining with a substantial widening of economic freedom, remains far from realization.
Cuba was supposed to be enjoying a new dawn. On taking office Raúl Castro promised to open up a moribund economy 95% controlled by the state, raising hopes that a Caribbean North Korea would become a growth tiger like China or Vietnam.
There have been modest steps: greater autonomy for farmers; the ban on owning computers, mobile phones and DVD players has been lifted; de facto privatisation of barber shops and beauty salons; bureaucracy clipped in provincial towns. But Raúl has ignored deeper reforms, suggesting his more doctrinaire brother remains influential.
"As long as Fidel is alive, Raúl will not cross him," said Ann Louise Bardach, author of Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana, and Washington. "And for Fidel everything is about the fall of the Russians. He fears that if we open this, we lose everything."
Even now, recent reforms in the agricultural sector, distributing underused land to farmers, is being undermined by the high costs of mechanization and the lack of sufficient incentives to farmers--Cuba's not replicating China's successes in economic reform.
Many of Cuba's problems can be traced directly to its population issues. As J. Bradford Delong noted in 2008, Cuba on the eve of the revolution enjoyed levels of economic and human development comparable in Latin America only to developed Argentina and Uruguay, with higher standards of per capita income than most of southern Europe and one of the lowest rates of infant mortality in the world. The investments of the Castros' regime may have substantially increased levels of human development, but Cuba has lost tremendous amounts of ground economically. Once on par with Argentina and Uruguay, GDP per capita--at least according to the Penn World Table--on par with that of Mexico or the Dominican Republic. In the meantime, Cuba has adopted policies like the sharp limiting of urbanization that has doubtless played a major role in shifting labour in the Cuban economy from agriculture to higher value added sectors. One's tempted to conclude that Cuba's urbanization has been focused as much within Cuba (in Havana and smaller cities) as in the United States (in the Cuban-American heartland of Dade County), that for young Cubans moving to the big city means leaving their country.
Cuba is being very badly served by its rulers. The country has a narrow window, produced by its combination of sub-replacement fertility with continuing high levels of emigration. It has only a short amount of time in which it can grow rich, recovering at least some of the ground that it has lost over the past half-century. Instead, the current government has opted for policies of stagnation--economic, political, social--which will serve the country badly, perhaps allowing emigration as an escape valve for the unhappy young. This 2002 Library of Congress report makes it clear that Cuba's future economic development depends on a more economically rational distribution of its population, in economic sectors and by geography. Nearly a decade later, that hasn't happened.
Cuba may yet become a democracy, eventually, but I'm now much less hopeful than I was in my postings of 2006 and 2009 that Cuba will reform before it becomes a sort of Caribbean Moldova, impoverished and depopulating. Governments can adopt many different policies to deal with their demographic issues, but Cuba's government certainly isn't notable for its competency. Yes, replacement migration might be an option, but where would the migrants come from? and why would they head to Cuba, instead of the United States or Spain or any number of more attractive destinations? The possibility of self-reinforcing migration, as young Cubans leave a Cuba that would be left increasingly behind by other countries with better economic records and considerable need for labour and more follow suit as Cuba's position deteriorates, is a real one.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
On the new wave of Icelandic emigrants
Marc Preel's AFP article doesn't say anything particularly surprising about one of the consequences of Iceland's spectacular economic collapse.
As Statistics Iceland's March 2010 report notes, the Icelandic population shrunk by 1% between 1 January 2010 and 1 January 2009, this despite a rate of natural increase of 1%. The outlying areas of Iceland, away from the west and especially the capital of Reykjavik, saw the sharpest declines. Looking to the labour market, GDP per capita has traditionally been quite high because of the peculiar characteristics of Iceland's economy, where low productivity is compensated for by very high rates of labour force participation and long working hours. Although, as Statistics Iceland notes, labour force participation and working hours remain quite high by First World standards, and unemployment is still relatively low, by historical standards there's an abundance of labouyr. Given the continuing economic uncertainties, why not emigrate?
Where are these Icelandic emigrants going? Some authorities in Manitoba have flattered themselves by assuming that the substantial late 19th century New Iceland settlement in their province will attract a second wave of Icelandic immigrants. Much more likely is a movement to Europe, the reverse of the migration more than a millennium ago that led to Iceland's settlement in the first place. Icelanders have had the opportunity to move en masse for a long time thanks to the Nordic Passport Union, formally founded in 1952, joined by Iceland in 1965, and fused with the Schengen Area in 2001. Norway seems to be favoured, partly because of the traditionally close cultural and historical relationship between the two countries, partly because its economy is still quite strong, partly because the country's still close enough to enable a certain sort of commuting.
It's important not to exaggerate things. Recent migration statistics do indicate that, although nearly five thousand people did leave the country, a bit under half of them were foreign citizens, recent immigrants. Iceland's immigrant population has exploded, migrants attracted by high living standards and the economy's demand for labour, growing from almost 2 700 people (1.9% of the population) in 1950 to 4 800 (1.9% of the population) in 1990, to, shooting up hugely over the 1990s, almost 7 300 (2.6% of the population) in 2000 and more than tripling to 23 400 people (7.4% of the population) in 2008, just before the crash. 1 500 of the foreigners who left Iceland in 2009 were Poles who--like others--were attracted to a prosperous economy desperately needing labourers and would likely have been among the first to leave, given the precedent of Polish migration to the United Kingdom and Ireland. The return of migrant workers to their home countries is a perfectly normal phenomenon.
That still leaves many Icelanders who did leave, and given the scope of Iceland's economic problems and the opportunities for Icelandic professionals, it's not unreasonable to imagine that unless things sharply improve, and soon, the country could face serious brain drain. Will Iceland make it? Small island societies, by virtue of their small size and their consequent dependence on larger external partners, have almost always produced relatively quite large numbers of emigrants. Iceland was such a society before; it might become such again.
Anna Margret Bjoernsdottir never thought she would be forced to leave her once wealthy homeland, but after 18 months of economic upheaval she has decided to join the biggest emigration wave from Iceland in more than a century.
"I just don't see any future here. There isn't going to be any future in this country for the next 20 years, everything is going backwards," lamented the 46-year-old single mother, who plans to move to Norway in June.
The former real estate agent who lost her job when Iceland's housing market disintegrated two years ago said she feared she could soon be forced out of her large house in Mosfellsbaer, some 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Reykjavik.
"I don't want to sell it," she said, vowing to "fight to keep" the comfortable wooden dwelling she, her daughter Olavia, their cat Isolde Tinna and their dog Candit the Bandit have called home since 2004.
Bjoernsdottir is not alone in planning to leave Iceland's economic mess behind and seek a new future abroad. Most people in Reykjavik have someone in their surroundings who has already packed their bags and left.
Emigration has rapidly picked up speed since the Atlantic island nation's economy crumbled in late 2008, dragged down by the collapse of its major banks. Last year it marked the largest exodus from the country since 1887.
In 2009, more than 10,600 people left the country of fewer than 320,000 inhabitants, according to official statistics, with 4,835 more people moving away than immigrating.
Foreign workers, mainly Poles, who since the beginning of the decade had been drawn to Iceland's financial miracle, were the first to leave.
But Icelanders like Bjoernsdottir have not been far behind, most heading to the country's still prosperous Nordic neighbours, especially Norway.
"I don't think I can offer a good future to my daughter Olavia" in Iceland, Bjoernsdottir said.
Like many other Icelanders who have seen their worlds collapse since the financial turmoil began, Bjoernsdottir's predicament stems from the decision, on advice from her banker, to take up a loan in foreign currency.
Repayments on her loan, in yens and Swiss francs, became insurmountable after the Icelandic krona nose-dived following the banking sector implosion.
"My loans are twice as high as they were," she said, shaking her head in disgust. "The payments keep going higher and higher, so I have to leave, I'm forced to!"
Bjoernsdottir lost her job in real estate at the end of 2008 as the crisis hammered Iceland's economy. Since then she has picked up temporary teaching work, but that position also disappeared last September.
Analysts expect Iceland's beleaguered economy to stabilise in 2010, but gross domestic product shrank 6.5 percent last year.
As Statistics Iceland's March 2010 report notes, the Icelandic population shrunk by 1% between 1 January 2010 and 1 January 2009, this despite a rate of natural increase of 1%. The outlying areas of Iceland, away from the west and especially the capital of Reykjavik, saw the sharpest declines. Looking to the labour market, GDP per capita has traditionally been quite high because of the peculiar characteristics of Iceland's economy, where low productivity is compensated for by very high rates of labour force participation and long working hours. Although, as Statistics Iceland notes, labour force participation and working hours remain quite high by First World standards, and unemployment is still relatively low, by historical standards there's an abundance of labouyr. Given the continuing economic uncertainties, why not emigrate?
Where are these Icelandic emigrants going? Some authorities in Manitoba have flattered themselves by assuming that the substantial late 19th century New Iceland settlement in their province will attract a second wave of Icelandic immigrants. Much more likely is a movement to Europe, the reverse of the migration more than a millennium ago that led to Iceland's settlement in the first place. Icelanders have had the opportunity to move en masse for a long time thanks to the Nordic Passport Union, formally founded in 1952, joined by Iceland in 1965, and fused with the Schengen Area in 2001. Norway seems to be favoured, partly because of the traditionally close cultural and historical relationship between the two countries, partly because its economy is still quite strong, partly because the country's still close enough to enable a certain sort of commuting.
Other victims of Iceland's financial woes have ended up with one foot in and the other out of the country.
Svanbjoern Einarsson, a 44-year-old father of three, says he is trapped in the country due to an unsellable house that he does not want to abandon.
Instead, the engineer has chosen to work for six-week stretches in Norway's oil capital Stavanger on the western coast, with occasional one- or two-week breaks home with his family.
"It's very difficult. When I work I forget about it, but in the evening it's very tough," he said.
Long-term, however, he acknowledged his future may be in Norway, not Iceland.
It's important not to exaggerate things. Recent migration statistics do indicate that, although nearly five thousand people did leave the country, a bit under half of them were foreign citizens, recent immigrants. Iceland's immigrant population has exploded, migrants attracted by high living standards and the economy's demand for labour, growing from almost 2 700 people (1.9% of the population) in 1950 to 4 800 (1.9% of the population) in 1990, to, shooting up hugely over the 1990s, almost 7 300 (2.6% of the population) in 2000 and more than tripling to 23 400 people (7.4% of the population) in 2008, just before the crash. 1 500 of the foreigners who left Iceland in 2009 were Poles who--like others--were attracted to a prosperous economy desperately needing labourers and would likely have been among the first to leave, given the precedent of Polish migration to the United Kingdom and Ireland. The return of migrant workers to their home countries is a perfectly normal phenomenon.
That still leaves many Icelanders who did leave, and given the scope of Iceland's economic problems and the opportunities for Icelandic professionals, it's not unreasonable to imagine that unless things sharply improve, and soon, the country could face serious brain drain. Will Iceland make it? Small island societies, by virtue of their small size and their consequent dependence on larger external partners, have almost always produced relatively quite large numbers of emigrants. Iceland was such a society before; it might become such again.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
On Kiribati and climate change and island nation migration
Kiribati, a collection of very low-lying islands in Micronesia almost absurdly vulnerable to climate change and rising sea levels has just announced how it intends to make sure its citizens can find refuge: they'll all become professionals.
In one of the most emotional sessions so far of the Copenhagen climate meeting, officials of the remote atoll nation said Wednesday they are doing everything possible to preserve their low-lying country, which faces inundation and loss of its fresh water to sea level rise.
They appealed to negotiators and world leaders at Copenhagen to reach an effective new global pact to limit carbon emissions, calling it their last hope of saving their homeland.
In Kiribati, climate change and sea level rise "are no longer a matter of speculation. They are a reality for our people," said President Anote Tong, in a videotaped address that showed footage of stands of salt-killed palm trees and waves crashing onto highways and lapping into homes.
But island officials also admitted they are making plans for an eventual "practical and rational" relocation of the atoll's 96,000 people to countries including Australia and New Zealand.
"We are proud people. We would like to relocate on merit and with dignity," said Tessie Lambourne, Kiribati's foreign secretary.
Under the plan, islanders are taking advantage of assistance programs in Australia and New Zealand to train young people as nurses and other in-demand professions. The programs allow successful graduates to remain and seek citizenship.
The hope, Lambourne said, is that the families of immigrants could eventually qualify for immigration as well.
She said she hoped similar training and migration programs would be established in other Western nations, including the United States, Canada and Japan.
"The idea is to have pockets of (Kiribati) communities around the world," she said.
Whether this ambitious plan can be actually realized or not, given the limited financial and other resources of Kiribati, is open to question, although upcoming global skills shortages and workplace shrinking will act in the island nation's favour. While the numbers involved are significantly smaller than, say, the shift of West Africans from the region's interior to the more hospitable coasts that I blogged about in June, the absolute numbers are still significant. Entire countries are vulnerable, nto only to disappearing to to first become uninhabitable.
Long-term climate change, including the increasing frequency and severity of extreme events such as heat waves, high rainfall intensity events, summer droughts, tropical cyclones, windstorms, storm surges, and El-Nino-like conditions are affecting the lives and livelihoods of people in PICs. Coupled with overexploitation of resources, increasing urbanization and population increase, the compounding effect has caused considerable and widespread damage and threatens development in the region. For the low lying atolls, the likely economic disruption could be catastrophic, even to the extent of requiring population relocation into other islands or adding numbers to the Pacific Diaspora, with the subsequent social and cultural disruption having unknown proportions. Failure to reduce vulnerability could also result in loss of opportunities to manage risks in the future when the impacts may be greater and time to consider options limited.
Today, roughly 1 million people live on coral islands worldwide, and many more millions live on low-lying real estate vulnerable to the rising waves. At risk are not just people, but unique human cultures, born and bred in watery isolation. Faced with inundation, some of these people are beginning to envision the wholesale abandonment of their nations. These islands could be rendered uninhabitable by other effects of climate change. Floods and rogue waves raise the saltwater table underlying the atolls, poisoning the staple crops of our atoll societies. Already some farmers have been forced to grow their taro in tin containers, and already some of the smaller islands in the atolls have lost their coconut palms to saltwater intrusion.
In one of the most emotional sessions so far of the Copenhagen climate meeting, officials of the remote atoll nation said Wednesday they are doing everything possible to preserve their low-lying country, which faces inundation and loss of its fresh water to sea level rise.
They appealed to negotiators and world leaders at Copenhagen to reach an effective new global pact to limit carbon emissions, calling it their last hope of saving their homeland.
In Kiribati, climate change and sea level rise "are no longer a matter of speculation. They are a reality for our people," said President Anote Tong, in a videotaped address that showed footage of stands of salt-killed palm trees and waves crashing onto highways and lapping into homes.
But island officials also admitted they are making plans for an eventual "practical and rational" relocation of the atoll's 96,000 people to countries including Australia and New Zealand.
"We are proud people. We would like to relocate on merit and with dignity," said Tessie Lambourne, Kiribati's foreign secretary.
Under the plan, islanders are taking advantage of assistance programs in Australia and New Zealand to train young people as nurses and other in-demand professions. The programs allow successful graduates to remain and seek citizenship.
The hope, Lambourne said, is that the families of immigrants could eventually qualify for immigration as well.
She said she hoped similar training and migration programs would be established in other Western nations, including the United States, Canada and Japan.
"The idea is to have pockets of (Kiribati) communities around the world," she said.
Whether this ambitious plan can be actually realized or not, given the limited financial and other resources of Kiribati, is open to question, although upcoming global skills shortages and workplace shrinking will act in the island nation's favour. While the numbers involved are significantly smaller than, say, the shift of West Africans from the region's interior to the more hospitable coasts that I blogged about in June, the absolute numbers are still significant. Entire countries are vulnerable, nto only to disappearing to to first become uninhabitable.
Long-term climate change, including the increasing frequency and severity of extreme events such as heat waves, high rainfall intensity events, summer droughts, tropical cyclones, windstorms, storm surges, and El-Nino-like conditions are affecting the lives and livelihoods of people in PICs. Coupled with overexploitation of resources, increasing urbanization and population increase, the compounding effect has caused considerable and widespread damage and threatens development in the region. For the low lying atolls, the likely economic disruption could be catastrophic, even to the extent of requiring population relocation into other islands or adding numbers to the Pacific Diaspora, with the subsequent social and cultural disruption having unknown proportions. Failure to reduce vulnerability could also result in loss of opportunities to manage risks in the future when the impacts may be greater and time to consider options limited.
Today, roughly 1 million people live on coral islands worldwide, and many more millions live on low-lying real estate vulnerable to the rising waves. At risk are not just people, but unique human cultures, born and bred in watery isolation. Faced with inundation, some of these people are beginning to envision the wholesale abandonment of their nations. These islands could be rendered uninhabitable by other effects of climate change. Floods and rogue waves raise the saltwater table underlying the atolls, poisoning the staple crops of our atoll societies. Already some farmers have been forced to grow their taro in tin containers, and already some of the smaller islands in the atolls have lost their coconut palms to saltwater intrusion.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
On Prince Edward Island's recent migration-driven population growth
I was surprised by this Globe and Mail article about my native province of Prince Edward Island, located in eastern Canada near the Atlantic. Apparently the Island has become something of a hotspot for international immigration.
An aggressive marketing strategy – focused on selling a lifestyle over poster-perfect vistas – along with investment and settlement help for newcomers may be paying off for PEI: Recent numbers from Statistics Canada show the province reporting one of its largest population spikes in more than 20 years, mostly because of immigrants choosing island life for a fresh start. Although statistics bounce up and down, in the second quarter of 2009, the population growth of PEI was second among provinces only to Alberta and well ahead of the rest of the Maritimes, continuing a trend that started in January.
It was the slower, safer lifestyle that won over Cherry (Cuiling) Xie, a 47-year-old clothing-factory owner from Shenzhen, China, who arrived in Canada in May, along with her husband and 17-year-old son. She now lives in her “dream house” in Stratford, a small town next door to Charlottetown, with a backyard that slopes to the river. Her son has settled into school – soaring to the top of his class in math – and she is studying English at Holland College, courtesy of the province. Her list of the island's pros: cheap housing, lobster dinners and no traffic jams.
“In Shenzhen, it would always take an hour to travel by car somewhere 10 minutes away,” she says.
Her classmate, Min Jiant, an engineer from Beijing who also came with her 17-year-old son (her husband is still working in China), offers the same sentiment. “We wanted to change our lifestyle. We wanted to find a place that was peaceful.”
More than a year after arriving, she says PEI, where her son no longer crams for school until midnight and a friendly neighbour shovels her driveway in the winter, has lived up to its marketing.
The overall numbers are small--just over 700 people, as this commenter at the corresponding article in the Charlottetown Guardian notes--but it differentiates the province from the other three provinces of Atlantic Canada, all of which have seen population declines of various degrees. This document makes the point that, between 1 July 2007 and 1 July 2008 the Island's population grew by some 1.23%, the highest rate of any Canadian province other than Alberta. The promotion of Prince Edward Island as a place with a more relaxed, hence superior, lifestyle that I
blogged back in December 2007 seems to be working. Certainly the web presence helps direct the curious towards a province with a relatively aggressive immigration policy.
This migration can't necessarily be considered a net plus to the province. Firstly, as a commenter at the Guardian article notes, this doesn't count as a rejuvenating replacement migration.
Let's get something straight here:
The majority of people moving TO this province are retirees - former Islanders returning home after a big career in Ontario or the U.S.
A small minority are immigrants, who, once they come here, use PEI as a stepping stone to move to a larger centre in Canada which has more economic opportunities (and possibly other cultural communities similar to wherever they came from).
PEI is forecast to decrease its school enrollment by 40% (that's PERCENT) by 2015-2020. You think the school closures this spring were painful? Can't wait to see the whining in 5 years time.
Schools, hospitals, public services - everything is going to be forced to retract.
And at the same time, we're going to be stuck with an ever-increasing number of elderly pensioners requiring more complex health care in a tiny province with a declining tax base.
Secondly, as one of Canada's poorest provinces there isn't necessarily much to keep international migrants from moving to larger centres.
provincial officials are realistic about the province's challenges – long walks on the beach and quick cross-town errands won't offset a past-due mortgage payment. Says Allan Campbell, the Minister of Innovation and Advanced Learning, whose portfolio includes immigration: “PEI is a very attractive option for people. But at the end of the day we all have to eat and pay our bills.”
And that means competing with Montreal and Vancouver – not an easy feat for a province with a capital city of 35,000 people. For Jim Ferguson, executive director with the recently created Population Secretariat, whose mandate is boosting PEI's population by 1.5 per cent a year, that means ensuring that newcomers remain long-term islanders. “Our job is to make sure they don't get off the plane [in Toronto].”
For as much as Ms. Xie and Ms. Jiant gush about the province, they are also realistic. When their English gets stronger, they want good jobs – Ms. Xie already explored opening a clothing store in Charlottetown and found the market too small. Soon, their sons will be off to university – they might want to follow them. But for now, Ms. Jiant brightly concludes: “So far, so good.”
Indeed.
This migr
An aggressive marketing strategy – focused on selling a lifestyle over poster-perfect vistas – along with investment and settlement help for newcomers may be paying off for PEI: Recent numbers from Statistics Canada show the province reporting one of its largest population spikes in more than 20 years, mostly because of immigrants choosing island life for a fresh start. Although statistics bounce up and down, in the second quarter of 2009, the population growth of PEI was second among provinces only to Alberta and well ahead of the rest of the Maritimes, continuing a trend that started in January.
It was the slower, safer lifestyle that won over Cherry (Cuiling) Xie, a 47-year-old clothing-factory owner from Shenzhen, China, who arrived in Canada in May, along with her husband and 17-year-old son. She now lives in her “dream house” in Stratford, a small town next door to Charlottetown, with a backyard that slopes to the river. Her son has settled into school – soaring to the top of his class in math – and she is studying English at Holland College, courtesy of the province. Her list of the island's pros: cheap housing, lobster dinners and no traffic jams.
“In Shenzhen, it would always take an hour to travel by car somewhere 10 minutes away,” she says.
Her classmate, Min Jiant, an engineer from Beijing who also came with her 17-year-old son (her husband is still working in China), offers the same sentiment. “We wanted to change our lifestyle. We wanted to find a place that was peaceful.”
More than a year after arriving, she says PEI, where her son no longer crams for school until midnight and a friendly neighbour shovels her driveway in the winter, has lived up to its marketing.
The overall numbers are small--just over 700 people, as this commenter at the corresponding article in the Charlottetown Guardian notes--but it differentiates the province from the other three provinces of Atlantic Canada, all of which have seen population declines of various degrees. This document makes the point that, between 1 July 2007 and 1 July 2008 the Island's population grew by some 1.23%, the highest rate of any Canadian province other than Alberta. The promotion of Prince Edward Island as a place with a more relaxed, hence superior, lifestyle that I
blogged back in December 2007 seems to be working. Certainly the web presence helps direct the curious towards a province with a relatively aggressive immigration policy.
This migration can't necessarily be considered a net plus to the province. Firstly, as a commenter at the Guardian article notes, this doesn't count as a rejuvenating replacement migration.
Let's get something straight here:
The majority of people moving TO this province are retirees - former Islanders returning home after a big career in Ontario or the U.S.
A small minority are immigrants, who, once they come here, use PEI as a stepping stone to move to a larger centre in Canada which has more economic opportunities (and possibly other cultural communities similar to wherever they came from).
PEI is forecast to decrease its school enrollment by 40% (that's PERCENT) by 2015-2020. You think the school closures this spring were painful? Can't wait to see the whining in 5 years time.
Schools, hospitals, public services - everything is going to be forced to retract.
And at the same time, we're going to be stuck with an ever-increasing number of elderly pensioners requiring more complex health care in a tiny province with a declining tax base.
Secondly, as one of Canada's poorest provinces there isn't necessarily much to keep international migrants from moving to larger centres.
provincial officials are realistic about the province's challenges – long walks on the beach and quick cross-town errands won't offset a past-due mortgage payment. Says Allan Campbell, the Minister of Innovation and Advanced Learning, whose portfolio includes immigration: “PEI is a very attractive option for people. But at the end of the day we all have to eat and pay our bills.”
And that means competing with Montreal and Vancouver – not an easy feat for a province with a capital city of 35,000 people. For Jim Ferguson, executive director with the recently created Population Secretariat, whose mandate is boosting PEI's population by 1.5 per cent a year, that means ensuring that newcomers remain long-term islanders. “Our job is to make sure they don't get off the plane [in Toronto].”
For as much as Ms. Xie and Ms. Jiant gush about the province, they are also realistic. When their English gets stronger, they want good jobs – Ms. Xie already explored opening a clothing store in Charlottetown and found the market too small. Soon, their sons will be off to university – they might want to follow them. But for now, Ms. Jiant brightly concludes: “So far, so good.”
Indeed.
This migr
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
On Jamaican population trends
The Jamaica Observer's Arlene Martin-Wilkins reports that Jamaica, relatively one of the more important emigration countries, is set to see net population decline by 2050 thanks to the demographic transition and emigration.
Jamaica's population is growing at an annual rate of 1.1 per cent and is on track to reach 2.8 million by mid-2025, approximately 100,000 more residents than it has today.
But the country is expected to see a decline in its inhabitants down to the 2009 level by mid-2050, according to the 2009 World Population Data Sheet released recently by the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB) which also projects the global population to hit seven billion in 2011 and 9.4 billion by 2050.
Carl Haub, senior demographer at the PRB and co-author of the report, told the Observer that the decline in 2050 will be primarily due to the imbalance between Jamaica's birth and net emigration rates.
"The projection for Jamaica makes several assumptions, as is done for all countries. First, that the birth rate will continue its decline so that women in Jamaica will eventually average less than two children each. And, second, that net emigration, ie, more people leaving Jamaica than arriving, will remain negative," Haub said.
"It does also assume that life expectancy at birth will continue to rise slowly but that has much less effect than the first two components of change previously mentioned," he added.
[. . .]
"The projection for Jamaica's population assumes that the birth rate will decline from 2.4 children on average today to 1.9 by 2050. [It] also assumes net migration will continue at about 20,000 leaving the country. One result of the projection is that a virtually stationary population size makes it easier to raise standards of education and living since the number of young people will remain relatively stable," he said.
"Of course, jobs will have to be provided but at least it's not an ever-increasing need for jobs," he, however, emphasised.
This conclusion isn't surprising since Jamaica already has a large diaspora of perhaps 1.5 million, quite large relative to the island nation's current population of roughly 2.7 million, while the island's poverty certainly will continue to propel outwards migration to richer Anglophone countries.
Jamaica's population is growing at an annual rate of 1.1 per cent and is on track to reach 2.8 million by mid-2025, approximately 100,000 more residents than it has today.
But the country is expected to see a decline in its inhabitants down to the 2009 level by mid-2050, according to the 2009 World Population Data Sheet released recently by the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB) which also projects the global population to hit seven billion in 2011 and 9.4 billion by 2050.
Carl Haub, senior demographer at the PRB and co-author of the report, told the Observer that the decline in 2050 will be primarily due to the imbalance between Jamaica's birth and net emigration rates.
"The projection for Jamaica makes several assumptions, as is done for all countries. First, that the birth rate will continue its decline so that women in Jamaica will eventually average less than two children each. And, second, that net emigration, ie, more people leaving Jamaica than arriving, will remain negative," Haub said.
"It does also assume that life expectancy at birth will continue to rise slowly but that has much less effect than the first two components of change previously mentioned," he added.
[. . .]
"The projection for Jamaica's population assumes that the birth rate will decline from 2.4 children on average today to 1.9 by 2050. [It] also assumes net migration will continue at about 20,000 leaving the country. One result of the projection is that a virtually stationary population size makes it easier to raise standards of education and living since the number of young people will remain relatively stable," he said.
"Of course, jobs will have to be provided but at least it's not an ever-increasing need for jobs," he, however, emphasised.
This conclusion isn't surprising since Jamaica already has a large diaspora of perhaps 1.5 million, quite large relative to the island nation's current population of roughly 2.7 million, while the island's poverty certainly will continue to propel outwards migration to richer Anglophone countries.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Quelques liens de la francophonie (1)
English isn't the only language out there on the Internet. Other languages--French, for instance--are also present, and other languages--again, like French--feature news article and contents concerning demography, not only in France but throughout la francophonie. Here's a few of the more recent articles. If you can't read French, Google Translate will provide a serviceable translation.
- Ndeye Maty Diagne at Press Afrik reports briefly on Senegal and migration. More than 5% of the Senegalese population lives outside the country, which has become a land of emigration and a land of transit all at once.
- Slate's French-language edition features an article by Gilles Bridier examining how, in the current recession, current migration policies in the developed world are counterproductive even as immigrants experience very hard times.
- Le Monde's Bucharest correspondent Miral Bran reports on the phenomenon of Moldovans using their acquired Romanian passports to access the European Union.
- The French Pacific territory of Wallis and Futuna, the only French territory governed by tribal chiefs, is experiencing both the demographic transit and mass emigration, the latter mainly to the larger and richer New Caledonia.
- In North Africa, Amel Djait reports that Tunisia has become a popular tourist destination for Algerians, in France as well as in Algeria.
- Jeune Afrique's Abdelaziz Barrouhi examines the very difficult path for Tunisian migrants to France.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
More on Cuban population futures
Cuba's population aging, which I blogged about back in August 2006, is starting to gain more press attention.
The article goes on to note that, with strained pension and other welfare systems, the standard of living for Cuban seniors may be quite low. Moreover, as the article notes, Cuba's aging isn't helped by emigration; the abstract "Cuban International Migration and Low Fertility Conditions ..." makes the point that Cuba's natural increase is diminished substantially by emigration. This will alter Cuba's standing in the Caribbean: A G. Edward Ebanks notes in his paper, continued high population growth in the Dominican Republic can expected to make that country the largest Hispanophone country in the Caribbean by the mid-21st century, while--he does not say, but this can be inferred--the Dominican Republic's lack of controls on internal migration allows for more fluid population distributions more suitable for an effective capitalist economy.
The UNFPA paper Social policies, family arrangements and population ageing in Cuba, by Rolando García Quiñones, goes into substantial detail. The findings are relatively predictable: Urban and developed areas are relatively older than rural and underdeveloped areas, the size of the average family has declined even as younger people find it necessary to stay in the family home on account of housing issues, and so on. The raising of the retirement age is something that receives extended treatment.
Until 2008, retirement age was 55 years for women and 60 for men. A new Law on Social and Security Assistance, approved by the end of last year by Parliament, came into effect on January 2009. Among other aspects, the new law modifies retirement age, increasing it by 5 years. But this increase will be gradual.
From 2009 onwards, retirement age will be raised six months each year, up to the year 2018, when it would be established at 60 years for women and 65 for men. Its application during the next ten years defers the retirement of more than 285 thousand people, with a saving of 4.5 billion pesos to the Social Security coffers. In the mean time it has been decided to increase the retirement benefits and to establish other benefits.
Of course, things can and will be complicated by migration. I've blogged about the division between Cubas A and B, a relatively developed west and a relatively underdeveloped east that traditionally produces migrants. Let's not forget the United States, home to a Cuban-American community with members numbering more than a tenth of the population of Cuba itself and concentrated in a south Florida that's the nearest point of American land to Cuba itself, providing beside numerous human links to sustain chain migration.
These migrations, on top of the general population aging, will certainly have a major impact on Cuba's long-term prospects. Replacement migration is a possibility, I suppose, but where from? Cuba's high human development doesn't correspond to the sort of high economic development that attracts migrants. It may well be that even with a best-case post-Castro transition, Cuba's economic prospects may be hamstrung by an excess of seniors and an insufficiency of workers. What the consequences of this would be for Cuban stability I leave to others to imagine.
This country reached a tipping point in 2006. It wasn’t any one event in particular, but according to Cuba’s Office of National Statistics, the island’s population of 11.2 million stopped growing that year, and dipped slightly. And it has been falling ever since.
Cuba’s population is projected to decrease by 100,000 by 2025, and the arithmetic behind that decline is a simple matter of subtraction: More and more Cubans are leaving the island, and Cuban mothers are having fewer children. The country’s fertility rate of 1.4 children per woman ranks as the lowest in Latin America.
The statistics highlight a risky demographic experiment that has been developing here for years.
While Cuba’s socialist health care system takes good care of the elderly and has prolonged life expectancy rates, the island’s lousy economy--squeezed by U.S. trade sanctions and its own inefficiencies--is driving young people to emigrate, while limiting family size.
As a result, senior citizens will be one of the fast-growing sectors of Cuba’s population in the coming decades. Life expectancy in Cuba is now 75 years for men and 79 for women, roughly on par with the United States, where those figures are 75 and 80, respectively, according to United Nations statistics. By 2025, according a recent article on the topic in Cuba’s communist newspaper Granma, 26 percent of Cubans will be 60 or older--the highest percentage of seniors in Latin America.
The article goes on to note that, with strained pension and other welfare systems, the standard of living for Cuban seniors may be quite low. Moreover, as the article notes, Cuba's aging isn't helped by emigration; the abstract "Cuban International Migration and Low Fertility Conditions ..." makes the point that Cuba's natural increase is diminished substantially by emigration. This will alter Cuba's standing in the Caribbean: A G. Edward Ebanks notes in his paper, continued high population growth in the Dominican Republic can expected to make that country the largest Hispanophone country in the Caribbean by the mid-21st century, while--he does not say, but this can be inferred--the Dominican Republic's lack of controls on internal migration allows for more fluid population distributions more suitable for an effective capitalist economy.
The UNFPA paper Social policies, family arrangements and population ageing in Cuba, by Rolando García Quiñones, goes into substantial detail. The findings are relatively predictable: Urban and developed areas are relatively older than rural and underdeveloped areas, the size of the average family has declined even as younger people find it necessary to stay in the family home on account of housing issues, and so on. The raising of the retirement age is something that receives extended treatment.
Until 2008, retirement age was 55 years for women and 60 for men. A new Law on Social and Security Assistance, approved by the end of last year by Parliament, came into effect on January 2009. Among other aspects, the new law modifies retirement age, increasing it by 5 years. But this increase will be gradual.
From 2009 onwards, retirement age will be raised six months each year, up to the year 2018, when it would be established at 60 years for women and 65 for men. Its application during the next ten years defers the retirement of more than 285 thousand people, with a saving of 4.5 billion pesos to the Social Security coffers. In the mean time it has been decided to increase the retirement benefits and to establish other benefits.
Of course, things can and will be complicated by migration. I've blogged about the division between Cubas A and B, a relatively developed west and a relatively underdeveloped east that traditionally produces migrants. Let's not forget the United States, home to a Cuban-American community with members numbering more than a tenth of the population of Cuba itself and concentrated in a south Florida that's the nearest point of American land to Cuba itself, providing beside numerous human links to sustain chain migration.
These migrations, on top of the general population aging, will certainly have a major impact on Cuba's long-term prospects. Replacement migration is a possibility, I suppose, but where from? Cuba's high human development doesn't correspond to the sort of high economic development that attracts migrants. It may well be that even with a best-case post-Castro transition, Cuba's economic prospects may be hamstrung by an excess of seniors and an insufficiency of workers. What the consequences of this would be for Cuban stability I leave to others to imagine.
Friday, June 19, 2009
What are the distant islands of the EU like?
I'd like to point people towards the French-language PDF, coming from INED's ongoing Population et Sociétes series, "Population et développement de l'Outremer de l Union européene". As I blogged recently about Tonga and the South Pacific, in March of this year on the French Caribbean islands, and in December 2007 about Canada's Prince Edward Island, islands almost by definition are relatively marginal and small areas, this marginality and smallness often triggering population movements--mainly emigration--which can take on great size relative to the islands' populations.
The European Union is, of course, European, but the past overseas expansion of many of its member-states has created a situation where literally millions of European Union citizens live outside of continental Europe. France has the largest extra-European population, numbering more than two million, but Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands also have large numbers of citizens outside of Europe. Almost all of these citizens live on islands--or, in the case of French Guiana, territories that may as well be islands. What, author Jean-Louis Rallu asks, is happening to these islands?
For starters, all of these islands, save the Portuguese Azores and Madeira, are experiencing at least some notable population growth, whether because of natural increase (the French overseas territories) or immigration. This population growth can take on significant proportions, with Mayotte and French Guyana growing so quickly that their populations will double in a bit more than two decades, and immigration from neighbouring poor countries--Brazil, Surinam, Morocco, Comores--playing a significant role. Aging is proceeding quickly, whether because of natural population aging or the immigration of the retired, while unemployment is frequently high on account of a lack of local industry and--as I wrote in March--subsidies from the metropole that undermine local economies.
Anyway, go read it (if you read French, at least). You'll find it worth it.
The European Union is, of course, European, but the past overseas expansion of many of its member-states has created a situation where literally millions of European Union citizens live outside of continental Europe. France has the largest extra-European population, numbering more than two million, but Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands also have large numbers of citizens outside of Europe. Almost all of these citizens live on islands--or, in the case of French Guiana, territories that may as well be islands. What, author Jean-Louis Rallu asks, is happening to these islands?
For starters, all of these islands, save the Portuguese Azores and Madeira, are experiencing at least some notable population growth, whether because of natural increase (the French overseas territories) or immigration. This population growth can take on significant proportions, with Mayotte and French Guyana growing so quickly that their populations will double in a bit more than two decades, and immigration from neighbouring poor countries--Brazil, Surinam, Morocco, Comores--playing a significant role. Aging is proceeding quickly, whether because of natural population aging or the immigration of the retired, while unemployment is frequently high on account of a lack of local industry and--as I wrote in March--subsidies from the metropole that undermine local economies.
Anyway, go read it (if you read French, at least). You'll find it worth it.
Friday, June 05, 2009
On Tonga and the Pacific islanders
Hello again!
Recently, I came across the Radio Australia report "Reassigned Tonga guest workers upset local balance". The article describes how Tonga guest-workers, while economically productive and satisfied with their own earnings, are unpopular among native-born residents of the region where they're working.
ADAMS: With harvest over, they begin pruning the almond trees. Wielding the chainsaws are Tonga men who are in Boundary Bend in Victoria on a 7-month temporary work visa.
FANGALOKA: Basically there is no work in Tonga. They don't starve. They are all big healthy boys but there is no... there's a lot of bartering. Most of the guys that have come over are subsistence farmers.
ADAMS: Alf Fangaloka's family migrated in the 1980's, looking for work. They run Tree Minders, employing the Tongans and Australians to manage the region's millions of almond trees. Mr Fangaloka says this pilot program is as much about alleviating labour shortages as it is about helping our Pacific neighbours.
FANGALOKA: Basically the average wage in Tonga would be about $AUD1.50 an hour. The GDP per capita is less than $1000 a year, so it is huge to what they earn here. During the harvest the boys were grossing $1200 to $1300 a week, so its a huge difference to them.
ADAMS: Piliu Kailahi - one of the oldest of the Tongans - smiles broadly as he reveals most of his wage is sent home.
PILIEU: The pay here is more than 8 or ten times the pay in Tonga, so we are so grateful.
ADAMS: All the men have families in Tonga - that's part of the requirement. Some have already put new rooves and extensions on their modest homes.
Emigration from the Pacific islands, especially from the islands of the Polynesia culture region in the South Pacific, is one of the major unsung movements of our time. Yes, the absolute numbers of migrants are relatively small, numberings in the tens of thousands, but relative to the population of these islands the number is huge. Low living standards and a connection to Anglophone countries, especially to New Zealand, has produced a huge diaspora. Smaller countries like Niue and Tokelau have several times as many co-ethnics living in New Zealand as in their homeland, while even in the larger nations like Tonga and Samoa emigration is a major phenomenon. Even now, New Zealand sets aside places in its immigration program for Pacific island migrants.
As I blogged back in 2004, Tongan emigration is a durable phenomenon, motivated by low standards of living, the ability to send vital remittances back to the homeland, cultural traditions of mobility, and a stagnant social and political environment. As Small and Dixon show in their 2004 Migration Information article, migration has radically changed this island nation.
The results of three decades of migration were apparent in the last Tongan census. Of Tonga's population of 97,784, almost seven of 10 Tongans now reside on the main island of Tongatapu, and practically one-quarter of the entire population lives in the capital, Nuku'alofa. Outer island areas are depopulating rapidly, leading to new government policies aimed at stemming the tide of internal population movement. Although recent population estimates suggest that migration overseas may be slowing, today half of the estimated 216,000 Tongans in the world are abroad, and almost every household has a relative resident in another country. About two in 10 of Tonga's expatriates are residents of Australia, while four out of every 10 overseas Tongans live in the US, and another four out of 10 live in New Zealand. The connections between migrants and their homeland have created a new global village of Tongans, with profound implications for their homeland.
[. . .]
Like many other Pacific island nations, Tonga has become a so-called MIRAB economy, that is, an economy dependent on migration, remittances, foreign aid, and government bureaucracy as its major sources of revenue. Despite efforts to diversify, Tonga has a limited export sector, consisting of agricultural exports including squash, fish, root crops, vanilla, and kava, and a fledging tourist industry. Since the 1960s, imports have exceeded exports, resulting in a consistent pattern of negative trade balances. In 2002, total imports to Tonga were more than six times its exports. Building materials, agricultural chemicals, fuel, and imported food (despite the fact that 65 percent of the work force is in agriculture) make up the bulk of imported items.
It is migration, along with the remittances of cash and goods from migrants who live and work overseas, that keeps the Tongan economy afloat. At the national level, remittances are the major source of foreign exchange and accounted in FY2002 for about 50 percent of GDP. At the village and household levels, remittances are an integral part of income and consumption. In addition to receiving shipping containers filled with appliances, clothing, toys, and building materials, villagers are regularly sent cash remittances from their relatives overseas. Seventy-five percent of all Tongan households report receiving remittances from overseas, making remittances the single most widespread source of income in Tonga. Remittances also comprise a sizable proportion of total household income, second only nationally to "wages and salaries" as the largest income source. At a national level, reported remittances—and there is ample evidence that much more is received than formally reported—comprise 22 percent of income derived from all cash sources, including wages, salaries, and sales of produce. In some villages, remittances account for as much as 50 percent of all household income.
As they go on to note, as doors for Tonga emigrants close and their remittances dry up, challenges to the Tonga monarchy and its monopoly on political power have grown. Where it will end up, nobody can say for certain. What can be said is that globalization in the form of migration has certain hit this supposedly idyllic South Pacific monarchy.
Recently, I came across the Radio Australia report "Reassigned Tonga guest workers upset local balance". The article describes how Tonga guest-workers, while economically productive and satisfied with their own earnings, are unpopular among native-born residents of the region where they're working.
ADAMS: With harvest over, they begin pruning the almond trees. Wielding the chainsaws are Tonga men who are in Boundary Bend in Victoria on a 7-month temporary work visa.
FANGALOKA: Basically there is no work in Tonga. They don't starve. They are all big healthy boys but there is no... there's a lot of bartering. Most of the guys that have come over are subsistence farmers.
ADAMS: Alf Fangaloka's family migrated in the 1980's, looking for work. They run Tree Minders, employing the Tongans and Australians to manage the region's millions of almond trees. Mr Fangaloka says this pilot program is as much about alleviating labour shortages as it is about helping our Pacific neighbours.
FANGALOKA: Basically the average wage in Tonga would be about $AUD1.50 an hour. The GDP per capita is less than $1000 a year, so it is huge to what they earn here. During the harvest the boys were grossing $1200 to $1300 a week, so its a huge difference to them.
ADAMS: Piliu Kailahi - one of the oldest of the Tongans - smiles broadly as he reveals most of his wage is sent home.
PILIEU: The pay here is more than 8 or ten times the pay in Tonga, so we are so grateful.
ADAMS: All the men have families in Tonga - that's part of the requirement. Some have already put new rooves and extensions on their modest homes.
Emigration from the Pacific islands, especially from the islands of the Polynesia culture region in the South Pacific, is one of the major unsung movements of our time. Yes, the absolute numbers of migrants are relatively small, numberings in the tens of thousands, but relative to the population of these islands the number is huge. Low living standards and a connection to Anglophone countries, especially to New Zealand, has produced a huge diaspora. Smaller countries like Niue and Tokelau have several times as many co-ethnics living in New Zealand as in their homeland, while even in the larger nations like Tonga and Samoa emigration is a major phenomenon. Even now, New Zealand sets aside places in its immigration program for Pacific island migrants.
As I blogged back in 2004, Tongan emigration is a durable phenomenon, motivated by low standards of living, the ability to send vital remittances back to the homeland, cultural traditions of mobility, and a stagnant social and political environment. As Small and Dixon show in their 2004 Migration Information article, migration has radically changed this island nation.
The results of three decades of migration were apparent in the last Tongan census. Of Tonga's population of 97,784, almost seven of 10 Tongans now reside on the main island of Tongatapu, and practically one-quarter of the entire population lives in the capital, Nuku'alofa. Outer island areas are depopulating rapidly, leading to new government policies aimed at stemming the tide of internal population movement. Although recent population estimates suggest that migration overseas may be slowing, today half of the estimated 216,000 Tongans in the world are abroad, and almost every household has a relative resident in another country. About two in 10 of Tonga's expatriates are residents of Australia, while four out of every 10 overseas Tongans live in the US, and another four out of 10 live in New Zealand. The connections between migrants and their homeland have created a new global village of Tongans, with profound implications for their homeland.
[. . .]
Like many other Pacific island nations, Tonga has become a so-called MIRAB economy, that is, an economy dependent on migration, remittances, foreign aid, and government bureaucracy as its major sources of revenue. Despite efforts to diversify, Tonga has a limited export sector, consisting of agricultural exports including squash, fish, root crops, vanilla, and kava, and a fledging tourist industry. Since the 1960s, imports have exceeded exports, resulting in a consistent pattern of negative trade balances. In 2002, total imports to Tonga were more than six times its exports. Building materials, agricultural chemicals, fuel, and imported food (despite the fact that 65 percent of the work force is in agriculture) make up the bulk of imported items.
It is migration, along with the remittances of cash and goods from migrants who live and work overseas, that keeps the Tongan economy afloat. At the national level, remittances are the major source of foreign exchange and accounted in FY2002 for about 50 percent of GDP. At the village and household levels, remittances are an integral part of income and consumption. In addition to receiving shipping containers filled with appliances, clothing, toys, and building materials, villagers are regularly sent cash remittances from their relatives overseas. Seventy-five percent of all Tongan households report receiving remittances from overseas, making remittances the single most widespread source of income in Tonga. Remittances also comprise a sizable proportion of total household income, second only nationally to "wages and salaries" as the largest income source. At a national level, reported remittances—and there is ample evidence that much more is received than formally reported—comprise 22 percent of income derived from all cash sources, including wages, salaries, and sales of produce. In some villages, remittances account for as much as 50 percent of all household income.
As they go on to note, as doors for Tonga emigrants close and their remittances dry up, challenges to the Tonga monarchy and its monopoly on political power have grown. Where it will end up, nobody can say for certain. What can be said is that globalization in the form of migration has certain hit this supposedly idyllic South Pacific monarchy.
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